Miss Madeleine Banham was torn. Part of her, a very large part, lapped up the adoration of the local bachelors with pleasure, though a rather smaller part resented that most of them would not have cared if she had lacked every one of the accomplishments which she had worked so hard to perfect at the select Queen’s Square seminary where she had spent her later schoolroom years. A pretty face and a good figure were all that they sought, and saw, but Madeleine was proud of her watercolours and her performance upon the pianoforte, to which she still devoted a half hour of practice every morning. When she did receive compliments about her art and music, she knew she would have received exactly the same had her ability been mediocre, because the gentlemen wanted to please her. It was slightly lowering. Her mama told her that it did not matter, but that very small voice inside her told her that her beauty and figure would undoubtedly decline, but she might be an even better painter and pianist at the advanced aged of thirty-five or forty.

She was a patently feminine creature, who floated rather than trod, had a laugh that was naturally bright and musical, and a voice that one besotted youth described as ‘an angel with a mouthful of honey’. Since he had been so unwise as to say this before Miss Lound, this had led to her describing the problems an angel would have with diction, and the deleterious effect of sticky fingers upon celestial harps. Whilst Madeleine could see that it was a very silly thing to say, the thought had been sweet, like the honey, and Mary Lound was far too prosaic and practical. There were nearly eight years between the young ladies, and they had thus never been close. For her part, Madeleine thought the other rather an Amazon, and even ‘mannish’, for she had no fear of muddy skirts from traipsing around the countryside on foot, killed fish with her bare hands, and would rather spend an hour loosing arrows into a butt than dancing quadrilles and flirting. In fact, Madeleine was pretty sure that Miss Lound was incapable of flirting. It was no surprise, as her mama said, that she had never had a suitor and looked almost certain to remain a spinster for the rest of her days. Madeleine could ride, of course, but did not hunt, and preferred to hack gently about the locality, being social, and wearing a habit that showed her figure to perfection.

This particular morning, her papa had suggested she ride with him ‘to get the roses back in your cheeks’. He awaited her in the hall, unperturbed by the fact that she was keeping him waiting, since she was always a little late for everything. Lord Roxton, a still handsome man in his late forties, enjoyed being congratulated on his daughter’s good looks, even though he always ascribed it to her mother’s beauty. Lady Roxton, having provided her husband with three sons and a daughter, had lost the trimness of figure as well as the bloom of her youth, but was accounted a very fine-looking woman ‘for her age’, which was, of course, damning. Madeleine descended the stairs, a vision in dark green, alleviated by her lace-edged, snow-white cravat and a curling feather in her hat which accentuated the red gold in her artless curls. Father smiled at daughter and nodded approvingly.

‘Very nice, my dear. We must be careful if upon the more frequented roads, or we will have gentlemen driving into the ditches when they gaze upon you and cease to pay attention to their leaders.’

‘Papa, you should not.’ Madeleine blushed.

‘I speak the truth, no more and no less. No wonder young Sopwell dripped his soup down his waistcoat when you smiled at him at dinner the other evening.’

‘Mr Sopwell lacks polish,’ said the girl who had yet to make a formal come out.

‘He is a trifle green, but a good lad, and—’

‘Are you going to ride upon the ’orses, or stand talking all morning, milor’?’ Lady Roxton emerged from a small saloon and shook her head at her husband.

‘We shall be off directly, my love.’ His lordship was, like many husbands, firm in great matters, but under the uxorial thumb in minor ones.

She came forward with a soft rustle of skirts and brushed a probably non-existent piece of lint from his coat, looking up at him with an affection that Madeleine found slightly embarrassing and that made him feel a decade younger in an instant.

‘Bien. Off with you, and be sure to return before the hour of one.’

He leant and kissed her cheek in a very mild salutation, but Madeleine looked away. Parents really did put one to the blush.

It had been over a week since Madeleine had been out riding, and her mount was a little fresh. She was a competent horsewoman, but her sire nevertheless did not engage her in conversation until she had stopped the animal sidling and brought it down off its toes, and he watched her, fully prepared to grab the bridle above the bit if required. When Copper was at last docile, they left the park and trotted along the Gotherington lane, stopping briefly to exchange civilities with the local doctor, who was looking somewhat weary after attending a difficult birth, and waiting for a flock of sheep to be transferred to pasture upon the other side of the lane.

‘I fear we shall not go as far as I would have wished, my dear, if we are to be home in time for luncheon.’ Lord Roxton did not sound too put out. ‘But now the fields are stubbled, we could cut back cross-country, if you are happy to do so.’

Madeleine agreed to this, as long as they used the gates rather than put their horses at them and jumped. They were on the point of turning about when a horseman came around the corner towards them, and pulled up when he recognised Lord Roxton, though his eyes did not linger upon the peer, but rather upon Miss Banham.

Sir Harry Penwood did not sigh; he stared.

‘Good Lord,’ he breathed, reverently. Lord Roxton’s lips twitched.

‘That, Sir Harry, is not exactly complimentary.’ Miss Banham looked coyly at him from under her lashes, and if he had been stunned, for her part she was a little impressed. When she had last seen him, three years past, she had only been on the cusp of finding gentlemen interesting, and Harry Penwood had the disadvantage of being known well since he had been at the playing pranks stage. He had looked nice in his regimentals, she remembered, but was rather dismissive of a young lady still in the schoolroom, and as yet to bloom into womanhood. There was nothing of the youth in the broad-shouldered man before her, except his ill-concealed amazement.

She had certainly bloomed, he thought, as his brain regained the ability to function.

‘My … my apologies, Madeleine, or rather, Miss Banham.’ He touched the brim of his hat and nodded also at Lord Roxton. ‘Good to see you again, sir.’ He gulped.

His lordship was quite used to seeing men’s Adam’s apples bob up and down when they first beheld his daughter, and smiled, though it faded with his words.

‘Glad to have you back among us, though I regret the circumstances, of course. Very unexpected. Shock to us all.’ Lord Roxton was not a man of crafted phrases.

‘Yes, sir. I hope Lady Roxton is well. I can see that M … iss Banham is in perfect health.’ Harry glanced at her. He dare not do more because his eyes felt as if they would be on stalks.

‘My wife is very well, thank you. I realise that Lady Penwood will not be socialising, of course, but we would be more than pleased if you come over to the Hall to see us some afternoon, would we not, Madeleine?’

‘Oh yes. But you will not tell us about gory battles, will you? Mr Bromley did so, and Mama and I disliked it excessively.’

‘You can be sure that I will not do so.’ Harry could think of nothing less suitable for a lady’s ears, and was himself more than content to leave the least happy aspects of soldiering in a box of memories to be opened rarely, and in private. There were, of course, the lighter moments, the funny stories, which, in expurgated form, might be brought out in mixed company, but they were not about war and death but living in the field, and among friends.

‘It is good to have another younger fellow in the vicinity. Brightens things up. Far prefer having balls to evenings of whist with the aged and decrepit, and you cannot have dancing without gentlemen fit to caper about.’ Lord Roxton liked dancing.

‘I confess, sir, I have not had much occasion for “capering about” these last few years, but I am sure I remember the steps.’ Sir Harry was thinking how good it would be to dance with Miss Banham.

‘I thought Lord Wellington encouraged dancing, when the army is out of the fighting season.’

‘Oh, he does, but that is mostly among the staff, and those quartered close enough. Never found myself in the right place at the right time.’

Miss Banham’s horse began to fidget. Papa had a tendency to take over a conversation and lead into subjects she found very boring,...